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An Exchange With Jeffrey Goldberg on 'Bluffing,' Israel, and Iran, Cont'd
Here is round two of the online exchange with Jeffrey Goldberg that began here. ___ Dear Jeff: Thank you very much for this reply. For our second round - which will be the last round for a while, as...
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Jeffrey Goldberg Replies on Israel, Iran, and 'Bluffing', Round 2
This follows our first round of Q-and-A exchange, and my second-round question earlier today. Jeffrey Goldberg replies, in a message sent on early Friday afternoon but that I saw (while on the road)...
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Two Good-News Aviation Items
Returning to Internet-contact land, after quite a while out of range. Because of recent experiences with Australian airports -- in bustling Sydney and in rustic Hobart alike, the domestic terminal is...
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What We Can 'Learn' from Our Nine Years in Iraq
This is little bit "old" -- it came out a week ago, which means that it is ancient history in Internet terms. But I just saw it now, in my return to online life, and it is valuable enough that I want...
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The Kindle Menace, Cont: Is The FAA Being Too Fast, Too Slow, or Just Right?
A reader is annoyed by my claim that the FAA's approach to the "Kindle problem" is "cumbersome." As a reminder: the "Kindle rule" is the instruction that computers, phones, electronic readers, digital...
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Magical Thinking in Israel, About Iran
Jeffrey Goldberg is away for the week, so I won't pose this as a third-round question, following our previous two rounds, on Israel's thinking about the "existential" threat from Iran. Though I'll...
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'No Country Which Threatens Israel Can Be Permitted To Have Nuclear Weapons'
A reader in Israel strongly disagrees with my argument that there is a "contradiction" in the current Israeli government view of Iran. On the one hand, the Iranian regime is (said to be) irrational and...
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Flight-Testing the Kindle: the Experts Speak!
In response to two previous posts about the FAA's plan to flight-test every different electronic device -- Kindle, Kindle 2, iPad, iPad2, nook, Bose A15, Bose A20 -- on every different aircraft model...
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If the Supreme Court Says It, It Must Be True
From a New York Times account of a Supreme Court colloquy on what will happen when -- OK, "if" -- five or more Justices vote to overturn the individual-mandate provision in the Obama health care...
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'De Facto State of War' between Israel and Iran
OK, I will ease off this theme soon, and return to more varied topics, after dealing probably tomorrow with some of the more interesting mail that has arrived in response to this and preceding items....
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See If You Can Guess How Many People Voted 'For' and 'Against' This Bill
From The Hill today: I'm highlighting cases like as a way of documenting a "change in norms," in real time. (Thanks to reader CS for the tip.) The "rules versus norms" question is increasingly...
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What to Read on the Chongqing Chaos
So much has happened over the past month in highest-level Chinese politics, and has happened so turbulently and so non-"transparently," that it has been very hard to know which wild speculations might...
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Pushback on North Korea as Poster Child for Iran
Yesterday I quoted a reader in Texas, who said that even if Iran's leaders weren't so suicidally irrational as to launch a nuclear strike on Israel, their sheer possession of nuclear weapons would...
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On a Cheerier Note: Solar Impulse, Mischke Highlights
A fair amount of bleak news recently, and upcoming, so in the ever-necessary "looking on the brighter side" spirit:1) Solar Impulse goes intercontinental. Over the years I've mentioned the heartening...
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Et Tu, NYT Editorial Page Writer?
From today's (otherwise excellent) NYT editorial on the Senate's recent 51-47 "defeat" of an Obama proposal to cut oil subsidies:Despite pleading by Mr. Obama, the Senate on Thursday could not produce...
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More Good News: Chinese Hoops, Aussie Hops, 'Interesting' Software
Winter is coming, as they would say in Game of Thrones land. By which I mean not the actual season but grim-toned political discussion ahead. So again let's pause to look on the bright side with:1)...
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Obscure but Interesting: Why Your Microwave Zaps Your Satellite Radio
(Please see update below.) Last week, in the latest roundup on "the Kindle menace" -- whether electronic devices actually create any kind of danger in flight -- I quoted a reader who gave this...
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Can This Really Be a Headline in the NY Times?
Just between you and I, this is alarming!
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'A Conservative Coup d'Etat'
How do our current political struggles look from outside? Here is a note from a reader in Holland, in response to The Hill's (never corrected) headline about the 51-47 "defeat" of a bill in the...
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How the Modern Faux-Filibuster Came to Be
In response to several recent items about the "defeat" of a bill by a 51-47 vote -- in which 51 senators voted Yes -- several readers write to emphasize the historical background worth always keeping...
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